


never knew love could be so tender

by Leyenn



Series: Triangular Theory [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five people, observing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never knew love could be so tender

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilerish for _The Light, Threshold, Fallen/Homecoming, Death Knell, Moebius_. Written for sg_rarepairings.

**1.**

He once, when he was little and a long time before they came to this planet and the Light took them away, walked in on his parents doing... well, he thinks it was the same thing the Earth people are doing, in the other room, the one they picked out for themselves for their stay here. The one he can see into from his own room through just this little crack in the adjoining door he didn't tell them about, because. Well, because he just didn't.

It's comforting, having them here, but scary at the same time. He doesn't want to think about it much, but he's been alone so long that the sound of other people makes his heart pound in his chest. He thinks Samantha knows, and that maybe that's why she let him stay when he asked, instead of going through the star-gate with the big warrior, Teal'c, even though he doesn't really need to be here the same way they do.

Someone calls them through the star-gate every day, and in another week they'll all be going back through. He wonders if this is what they'll do when they're on the other side, too.

He heard them first, the same as always. Quiet voices, Samantha and Daniel bantering back and forth and then Jack's dry voice joining in or riding roughshod over theirs. It's been the same each night, until either they fade away into silence or he falls asleep first, listening to the comforting-but-strange murmur of unclear words through his secret, comforting crack in the door.

But tonight they kept talking, and he kept listening, even though he still can't catch what they're saying. He makes it up, in his head. Imagines all the things they could be talking about, all the places they've been and things they've seen, all the fabulous things he's been reading about that await them back on Earth, like zoological parks and cars and ice cream and pizza. And he thinks about the things his parents used to talk about and imagines the Earth people talk about those things, and that's comforting, too.

Tonight Daniel's voice is soft, fast, the words tumbling over each other, each one a clear sound of its own but cut off by the one following: Samantha is a low murmur, a rise and fall of sound now and then between the intensity of Daniel. Jack when he starts his nightly interruption is a lazy deep tone, probably not clear even in the same room.

And then there are other sounds, scuffles and movements, and then Daniel's voice again and it's rough and uncertain, sounds almost like Jack, and isn't clear any more at all. Samantha's voice, then, different and rough, too; the same tone.

Suddenly they're not so comforting, those voices, and that's when he gets up and shuffles over to the crack in the door and peeks through.

What he sees is Jack naked from the waist up, sprawled out where they sleep, Samantha leaning over him but looking up at Daniel: Daniel who's half naked, too, and holding her face in the palm of his hand.

Jack's fingers brush Samantha's back, slide under the tight black shirt they all seem to wear, and Daniel kisses her.

It's the way his father kissed his mother, that time when he saw them: as if for just a moment, it takes the place of breathing. Jack makes a rough sound, one that isn't a word to be misheard at all, and his hand climbs higher up Samantha's back; she reaches out and then Daniel's face is in her hands and he's making sounds, too, ones that say even more than words.

Jack sits up and wraps his arms around Samantha from behind, under her shirt, as if he's going to pull her away except he doesn't. He puts his face against her neck, and she sighs. Daniel breaks then and looks at them both: his eyes are in shadow, deep and dark, until he leans over Samantha's shoulder and kisses Jack. Samantha's hands stroke his back and he sighs, too, a happy sound, so happy that it's sharp around the edges with amazement.

"Jack," he says, a clear, tender sound. "Sam..."

"Yes," Samantha says, under Jack's rough, "Yeah," and for that moment they seem to blend together, heads bowed, the three of them, as if they're suddenly talking without any words in a way he's never seen. It's strange and quiet; it ends with Samantha turning and Jack kissing her mouth and Daniel making that sound again, as if it's him they're kissing, as if this steals his breath away, too.

Loran stops watching, then.

  


*

  


**2.**

The rite of Malshuraan finally over, Teal'c is resting, and all she wants to do is to get her blood sugar up and find a good bed - preferably her own, but if it's close enough she wouldn't particularly be fussy right now. She's barely awake when she stumbles into the commissary, and that's why she almost misses the quiet jumble of people at the furthest corner table.

She's suspected for a while that there's something going on between them, more from the things Sam won't tell her than the things she does; but she didn't expect to ever see it with her own eyes, definitely not here on the base. Maybe, though, after the last few days they've had, she should have been expecting it. SG-1 has never been the most subtle of teams, after all. Although if there is a way to be subtle about anything inside the confines of the SGC, three fifty a.m. in a quiet corner of the empty commissary is probably it.

Daniel is bundled up into a chair against the wall, one arm behind Sam's back; the Colonel has an answering arm over her shoulders, and Sam's head is resting heavily on his shoulder in a way that suggests she doesn't intend to lift it for a long, long time. The Colonel has his feet propped up on the table in front of them, bad knee over the good one. As she stands watching, Daniel shifts around to put his feet up next to the Colonel's and his head against Sam's: there's shifting and mumbling for a few minutes while she's digging around behind the counter, and by the time she's found anything edible they're quiet again.

There are twenty other tables she could choose but somehow she still finds herself over in their corner, sliding in across the table from the Colonel's boots. All three are dozing if not asleep: she's halfway through opening the chilled salmon on rye she's managed to find by the time anyone even notices she's there.

It's Sam who opens bleary eyes first and blinks across the table at her. It's a measure of how exhausted she must be that she doesn't do anything but sigh and put her head back onto O'Neill's shoulder when she sees who's joined them. "Hm. Hi, Janet."

She smiles and takes a bite of her sandwich. "Hi, yourself. Couldn't find your room?"

Sam smiles tiredly. "Forgot I had one," she says, and closes her eyes again.

"Sam?"

Sam's eyes flicker open again. "Hm?"

She doesn't say it in words, just in case she's got everything _horrendously_ wrong and it's a completely crazy idea and Sam will think she's drugged just for suggesting it: she lets her eyes do the talking, the way she looks at each of them and back to Sam say what she's been suspecting for a while now.

But Sam smiles. "Yeah," she says, and her eyes stay open this time, blue and bright with emotion even through the fatigue.

Daniel's eyes open, too, with a muttered, "Sam, you're talking in your sleep again," before his gaze focuses, at least as much as it will without his glasses, and she sees him swallow. "Oh. Janet. This, uh, this is-"

"Exactly what it looks like," Sam mutters, and just tries to find a more comfortable position for her left arm.

"Apparently exactly what it looks like," Daniel finishes, and Janet smiles, because what this looks like is a team with one man down, sacked out and taking some comfort after a late night at their comrade's bedside, which is exactly and not at all what it actually is. The irony to her is just how many people think they see through the pretence whenever there's only two of them together, and how few will actually ever notice what's right under their nose.

"Would you two quit your yapping and let a guy get some sleep?" O'Neill says it without opening his eyes: when he does, he's looking directly into hers. "Oh." He frowns. "Hey, doc."

"Colonel."

He frowns more closely at her. "You know, right?"

She smiles. "Know what, sir?"

He smiles back: the other half of the code. "That's the spirit."

After that everything goes silent again. Suddenly she's not that hungry any more: Teal'c's going to be all right, and they're going to be all right, and that means her job is finally, at least for tonight, done. She leaves the sandwich at what few bites she's been able to stomach and stands up from the table, keeping her voice soft. "Goodnight, Colonel. Daniel. Sam."

O'Neill raises a finger from Sam's shoulder, but his head is already drooping, and Daniel's starting to snuffle softly close to Sam's hair. It's almost a pity, she thinks, looking at the huddle they make, how long it'll probably take for anyone else to suspect what's really going on with them, because it's almost beautiful to see.

  


*

  


**3.**

He's remembered enough that it should feel normal doing this. Or at least, he feels like it should feel normal. He wonders if normal for them is anything like normal should be, for - well, normal people.

Jack holds him by the shoulders from behind, pressed up close as Sam leans against his chest; her hands are gently touching him everywhere she can, as if she's trying to calm him, which is exactly what she's somehow, against most good odds, managing to do. His skin is tingling with a strange mix of anticipation and confusion, with a healthy dose of something that could very well be a frighteningly deep emotion on the side.

"Daniel," she says softly. "You don't have to do this if you don't want..."

"Oh, I want." He clears his throat because the words come out unsteady. She's all soft skin and taut muscle everywhere, Jack's hands are broad and firm and god, they're both so warm pressed against him. "Definitely want."

Sam smiles, and there's a sparkle in her eyes. "Okay then."

"I just... this is. You know. A little weird."

"The two of us?"

"No, actually." He smiles at her, closing his eyes just for a moment to drink it all in - their hands and their warmth, and being held like this is... incredible. "That's kinda not weird at all."

"Really?" Jack sounds surprised. "Was kinda weird for me the first time."

"Oh," Sam says, not to Jack but to him, like she's figured it out now too. She touches his lips, and her smile deepens. "Don't worry, Daniel, we'll be gentle with you."

"We will?" Jack's teasing is low and rough in his ear, and he can hear the playful grin in the words. "I mean, sure we will."

"We will," Sam says firmly, and kisses him again. Jack plays navigator, steering them those final, heady few feet to the bedroom while Daniel becomes intimately reacquainted with the wonder that is Sam's tongue. A memory hits him at the same time as his calf hits the mattress; he bites her lower lip, only gently, and she surges against him with a low moan.

Jack laughs against the back of his neck. "Few things coming back to you, eh?"

Sam breaks the kiss, gasping for a breath, and her eyes are dark, brilliant with desire. He grins. No, there's nothing weird about wanting these two people at all.

"A few," and he rubs a fingertip across her lips, making her shiver because he can, because he's allowed this, by some miracle, "but it's just not quite the same, actually... doing it."

Jack's voice softens with understanding. "Yeah, I get that." His eyebrow rises the way Daniel remembers means, _and now I will ask the obvious question_. "You want to, do it, though, right?"

"Yeah." His own voice sounds rough now, and he's holding tight to Sam, and images of _doing it_ are tumbling over like escaped daydreams in his head: a naked Sam straddling him, head thrown back, glorious body arched with Jack's hands everywhere, and she's gasping as she comes; Jack's dogtags trailing against his skin, Jack groaning, one of those broad hands on his own cock and Sam murmurs, murmurs in his ear as Jack sinks back onto him... the sense memory _alone_ could make him hard, if he wasn't already. "Oh god, yeah. I want to."

"Good." And Jack turns him around and flashes him a wicked smile. "My turn," he says, his eyes even darker than Sam's, and he takes Daniel's face in his hands and kisses him. It's deep and rough and hungry, beautiful, and Daniel can taste every second of just how much Jack's missed him in it.

Somewhere in the middle of kissing him, Jack pushes him back onto the bed: so that when he looks up, starving for air and for Jack and for Sam, he's seeing Jack straddling him - bad knee or not - and Sam stretching herself out alongside them, her hand a warm print of skin against his stomach. Jack's tags dangle against his chest, and he clenches a fist in the sheets to keep from winding the chain through his fingers.

Sam's watching him intently. "What do you want, Daniel?"

"I don't even know," he admits, and she smiles and nuzzles him tenderly. "Can I just - oh _god_," because Sam's hand is sliding lower, sliding around his cock, and Jack's leaning down to kiss him again and he's lost, suddenly he's lost in this, in _them_, in Jack's hot, hungry mouth and Sam's familiar hands, and he remembers, really _remembers_ what this is, what it means to him.

Jack's still kissing him when Sam makes him come, which is pretty much immediately: he hears a choked sound that's nearly a sob, and only realises it's his own voice when Jack breaks the kiss and it gets louder, becoming a rough groan that breaks him, finally. Sam makes a soft, aching noise as she lets up and leans in to hold him; he clings to her and to Jack, buries his face in her neck as the shudders run through him and tears burn briefly behind his eyes, because he _remembers this_. He remembers _them_.

"Welcome home," Jack murmurs in his ear, and he feels like he finally is.

  


*

  


**4.**

He bumps into Daniel in the hall outside the main infirmary. He swallows the lump in his throat and forces up a smile.

"Hey, Daniel."

"Jacob." Daniel smiles in return, but it's uneven and a little bleak. "You, uh, you've been to see Sam?"

He nods. "Yeah. She's resting."

"Good, that's - good." Daniel folds his arms in front of him. "And you're still going," he says, as if he knew it anyway.

"Yeah." Neither he nor Selmak have any other choice. He knows that Sam knows that; knows that Daniel knows it too. He told Daniel even before he told Sam, not only because he could but because he knew Daniel would understand. He's pretty sure Jack's not going to grasp the reasoning with quite as much gravitas, and he's kind of hoping against hope that he won't have to deal with that.

Daniel nods. He understands. "How long until you leave?"

"A few hours." He wants it to be measured in days, at least; leaving Sam would be hard enough then, knowing she's on the road to recovery, but right now is downright painful. Still, at least he got to see her awake. _At least she is alive,_ Selmak says, and her confidence is a comfort, if a pale one.

"That soon." Again, Daniel doesn't seem surprised. He clears his throat. "Well, I guess, then, this is goodbye, at least for a while."

He smiles and holds out his hand. Daniel's grip is firm and calm, not pleased but accepting. _Tell him,_ Selmak urges, and he pulls Daniel into a rough embrace.

"Take care of her for me," he says quietly, and Daniel hugs him back in answer. He doesn't say _don't either of you dare hurt her_ or _you know you have my blessing_ but he hopes at least something between the two is in his voice.

"We will," Daniel says. "I promise." He pulls away and gestures down the corridor. "I should, uh-"

"Yeah." He squeezes Daniel's hand once more. "Take care of yourself, too," and Daniel smiles like he knows what isn't being said there as well.

He slips back into the infirmary once more before they dial out. It's Selmak's idea, even though he wars with himself and her about going: her idea too, hiding himself in the shadows of the observation room when he refuses to go through saying goodbye again.

Down in the room below Jack's in a chair by Sam's bedside, slumped back, arm outstretched and her uninjured hand in his. Daniel's perched on the other side of the bed with a book of some kind propped open on his knee, his fingers rubbing gently up and down Sam's forearm above the bandages. It looks like he doesn't even really know he's doing it, and neither of them are going to tell him. Sam seems to be awake; she's turned toward Daniel, just a little way, and she's trying to smile around the ragged gash across her left cheek.

Daniel's probably smiling back at her. Jack shifts forward and props his elbow on the bed. Sam turns her head to look at him, and he puts his other hand on her shoulder.

He could turn on the speakers - they probably wouldn't notice - but he doesn't. It's something simpler this way, without Jack's dry humor or Daniel's earnest intensity to interrupt what he's really seeing. And what he's seeing is exactly what he's always resisted seeing between them, suddenly and ironically clear.

Sam says something; Jack responds. Daniel puts down his book. Sam reaches up and Daniel takes her bandaged hand between both of his, even kisses her fingers. Jack's free hand is resting against her neck now, the backs of his fingers on her pulse. Daniel looks across at Jack, his lips moving; Jack nods and looks down at Sam, and his throat closes up at the shattered look on her face, the obvious tears in her eyes as she nods and murmurs something back.

_She's telling them we're gone._ Selmak's tone is as tender as the hands holding Sam's.

_Yeah._ Daniel's probably trying to make sense of it for Jack, from the looks they're sharing. Jack shakes his head, slowly, and then Sam cuts in and they both stop, just like that. Daniel lifts her hand to his chest and holds it there, and Jack - Jack, cranky Jack O'Neill who usually has all the tact of a bulldog, strokes her mussed hair through his fingers and leans in and kisses her tenderly on the forehead.

Everything goes still, as if nothing in the world can interrupt this. He's not certain anything can, although Lord knows there was a time he'd have tried.

And then Jack leans back, Sam's hand still in his, and Daniel's right there to dry her tears and bring back her smile. It's like looking at a knot he has no hope of unravelling: suddenly he's ashamed not to have understood it earlier, how exactly what he wants for Sam is there, now, in that room.

_It was a good idea to come back,_ Selmak says.

_Yes, it was._ He'll admit that. Seeing them like this... gives him hope.

  


*

  


**5.**

For just a brief moment in the early morning, he watches them sleep.

It is an honor he's sure no one else would have bestowed upon them: any one of the three could and would wake at any sound in the room, and yet he is permitted to stand here and observe them. O'Neill sleeps on his back; Daniel Jackson on his side, one arm flung across to find Samantha on the other side of O'Neill's bare chest. Samantha is curled up under O'Neill's shoulder, her fingers splayed over Daniel Jackson's forearm. They lie beneath rumpled sheets, tangled close enough that to wake one would be to wake them all, an image he has seen only rarely even in the years they've all served this planet together.

O'Neill has very particular ideas about fishing, and even in the presence of fish, as they now are, it would seem that such creatures are not central to any of them.

Kelnoreem comes very easily in this place, and this particular visit has been no exception. He does not believe O'Neill's reasons for the plentiful stock of candles that have appeared since last he visited the cabin, but he also knows O'Neill better than to express his thanks in words. Instead he will cook breakfast and let them sleep, and knowing his teammates as he does, he's sure that will be thanks enough.

Indeed, no one emerges from the bedroom until mid-morning. Samantha is the first: he doesn't find this surprising. In the field she is usually the first to rise, as well, and he knows well how such habits become ingrained.

"Hi, Teal'c." She smiles at him as she wanders into the kitchen, wearing a t-shirt and sweat pants that he recognises were once O'Neill's. "Mm. Is that coffee?"

"Indeed."

"Thanks." She pours a mug and her smile broadens as she turns to watch him. "Wow. Are you making _waffles_?"

"Indeed."

"You know how to make waffles?"

"Indeed."

She laughs. "Now you're just making fun of me."

He tips his head. "Perhaps."

"I wonder if Jack has any maple syrup around here," she says thoughtfully, and starts what appears to be a meticulous and thoroughly logical search through cupboards - a search that appears to still be incomplete, although already yielding two types of syrup and a jar of blueberry jelly, when O'Neill and Daniel Jackson emerge bickering and damp from the bedroom.

"I'm telling you, Daniel-"

"Teal'c's making waffles," Samantha says loudly, and he restrains a smile: the dispute ceases without further comment.

"Cool," is O'Neill's immediate response, and, "wait, I have a waffle iron?"

"Apparently," Daniel Jackson says, along with "wow," as he sneaks a glance at the growing pile, as well as, "mmm, and is that coffee I smell?"

Samantha abandons her search for syrup and hands him her own mug. O'Neill embraces her from behind as she pours another; she laughs as he tries to hold her still, while she in turn attempts to procure a second mug for him. "_Jack._ You want me to burn you?"

"Not in front of the Jaffa," O'Neill says, grinning, and she slaps his wrist.

"Behave."

"We're on vacation, Carter. No one behaves in my cabin."

"So we noticed," Daniel Jackson says from the table. Samantha smiles and begins to plate up waffles.

"We didn't keep you awake last night, did we, Teal'c?"

"I was not asleep," he points out. "However, I experienced no difficulty in reaching kelnoreem."

O'Neill procures silverware from a drawer and pats him on the shoulder. "Glad to hear it."

"I was in fact most impressed. It has been some time since I have heard you enjoy your union so vehemently."

They look at him, as one, and he feels for a moment the center of something powerful before Samantha breaks the moment by laughing. O'Neill slaps him on the back again.

"Glad to hear that, too, T," and he steals a waffle from Samantha's plate while placating her with what appears to be a particularly leisurely kiss. She hums, sounding particularly pleased, but still grabs his wrist and takes a bite of the emancipated waffle. O'Neill scowls. "Hey!"

Samantha chuckles, kisses him quickly with a mouthful of waffle, and slips out of his embrace. He dives after her, trapping her against the table. Daniel Jackson puts down his coffee, reaches out and drags her down into his lap; she yelps and laughs, both sounds muffled as O'Neill takes advantage of the assistance to kiss her again.

This is one of those brief moments, again, when he knows he is privileged to be allowed to see what he does: three great warriors of the Tau'ri, each one he is honored to call friend and family, bound together in many ways that perhaps only he has seen and others still more private. Many among the Tau'ri and the Jaffa would not understand this: perhaps once he might not have grasped it, either, but at this moment he cannot do otherwise. They are, simply, he has learned, parts of a whole.

  


*

  



End file.
